


Afterword: Mint Chocolate Chip

by leiascully



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Books, Diners, First Crush, Friendship, Gen, Milkshakes, The Moonlite All-Nite Diner
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-25
Updated: 2013-09-21
Packaged: 2017-12-24 15:32:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,547
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/941601
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leiascully/pseuds/leiascully
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tamika definitely deserves a milkshake.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [pearwaldorf](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pearwaldorf/gifts).
  * Inspired by [How I Survived My Summer Vacation, by Tamika Flynn, Age 12 3/4](https://archiveofourown.org/works/914801) by [thingswithwings](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thingswithwings/pseuds/thingswithwings). 



> Timeline: post-"Summer Reading Program"  
> A/N: For pearwaldorf, who I hope likes mint chocolate chip.  
> Disclaimer: _Welcome To Night Vale_ and all related characters are property of Joseph Fink, Jeffrey Cranor, and Commonplace Books. No profit is made from this work and no infringement is intended.

The first thing Tamika does once her mom and dad finally let her out of their sight for more than five minutes is get on her bike and head to the Moonlight All-Night Diner. She gets permission first, obviously, and they're happy she's going to go meet a friend, and anyway the diner isn't very far from their apartment. Tamika's been going to the Moonlight All-Night Diner since she was really little. It's kind of a dumb name, she thinks. The diner's not just open at night. Tamika's always been told that she should use the words she means to say. After reading all of those books, she knows a lot about the power of words. It should really be the Moonlight All-Day And All-Night Diner, or the Moonlight Always-Open Diner, or the Moonlight Eternally Glowing In The Desert Like A Pearl In An Oyster Diner. 

The point is, she's got a lot of suggestions.

She parks her bike outside the Moonlight Incompletely-Named Diner and locks it to the rack, which is etched with runes that keep it from transforming into anything else. It's an improvement over the old one. When Tamika was ten, she and her parents all lost their bikes when the rack outside Big Rico's turned into a really confused antelope, and she heard the diner's was so eldritch that nobody could even find the words to describe it. Her history teacher was there - he still only communicates through interpretive dance that's mostly shivering.

Anyway, for now, her bike is safe. Tamika pulls open the door and steps into the mint-green interior of the Moonlight Even Though It's Daylight Diner. The fact that it's day changes the color of the walls so that they're really more of a spring green with touches of lime. Tamika wonders how many shades of green she'd see if she sat here all day and watched the light fade. The waitress smiles at her - Tamika notices that the fangs have receded, which is probably for the best. There's a special on invisible pie, but Tamika doesn't like invisible pie. It's a hot day and she's here for a milkshake. She climbs onto a stool. Her feet still swing above the rungs, but she's sure they'll touch soon.

"What'll it be, hon?" the waitress asks her. 

"I would like a milkshake," Tamika says firmly. When she was littler, she used to be kind of shy. Even when she wasn't too shy anymore, she was still pretty quiet a lot of the time. Since the library, she feels her voice getting stronger and stronger. 

"What flavor? We got chocolate, vanilla, strawberry, bloodstone, cookies n' cream, creeping horror, mint chocolate chip…"

Tamika politely cuts the waitress off. The list is on the menu board, and there are about fifty more flavors. Tamika always gets the same thing anyway. "Mint chocolate chip."

"Coming right up," the waitress says. She writes it down on her little pad of paper and then rips off the top paper and passes it over the counter to the high school kid who's working the milkshake machine. Michael Sandero, Tamika thinks his name is. She isn't really into football - they're only up to out-of-body pickleball in P.E. class - but she likes it when the Night Vale team beats Desert Bluffs, and Michael got his name and his picture in the paper, and Tamika likes to read. Obviously. Plus, she's pretty sure there aren't a whole lot of two-headed kids in Night Vale right now. She watches him scoop the ice cream out of the big square box of ice cream and scrape it into the metal cup. She likes the noise the milkshake machine makes and the way the metal cup gets all frosty. Michael pours the milkshake into a glass, helping it along with a spoon, and sets the glass and the metal cup with the spoon still in it in front of Tamika. He fishes under the counter and gives her a straw.

"You're that library kid, right?" he says. 

"Yes," Tamika says.

"Wow, I could never get through _Cry, The Beloved Country_ ," he says with admiration in his voice. Michael shakes his heads like he just can't believe it, and then he smiles at her (twice). "Your milkshake's on me. Good job, kid."

"Thanks," she says. A high school kid is talking to her like she just single-handedly beat Desert Bluffs. It's pretty great. Even when he calls her "kid", it's not because she's young. It's like they're part of a team. Tamika holds up her hand boldly, and Michael Sandero gives her a high five. 

"I gotta clean the machine," he says. "But you rock."

Tamika peels the paper off her straw and sticks the straw into her milkshake. It's perfect, almost too thick to drink, and she happily sucks at the straw for a whole minute before she actually can taste the shake. The mint makes her mouth all tingly, and the little flecks of chocolate really round out the flavor, kind of like the way Harper Lee's extended metaphor of innocence and the way that innocence is destroyed by the world ties everything together in _To Kill A Mockingbird_. Scout's the mockingbird, but not really, just like her shake is chocolatey, but not really. She's pretty sure that the book wouldn't be as good without the metaphor, just like the shake would basically be gum-tasting sludge in a cup without the chocolate. But the way it is, it's perfect.

Tamika sucks on the straw until her cheeks hollow and ache. She could use the spoon, but she's not going to. She's enjoying the experience. It's kind of like _Anna Karenina_ \- you have to suffer through a whole lot of dense stuff before you get that taste of something amazing. It's worth it, though. If it weren't for the dense stuff, the amazing would be less amazing.

She's compiling a reading list for next summer, just in case: her parents are helping her pick out the books that won't be too much for her yet. They said they know she can read all the words and understand them, but some concepts might be a little too complicated for now, sweetie. (She knows what they really mean is that they're keeping back the books with too much sex or violence. That's okay. It's nice to have somebody protecting her as she reads. She knows it won't always be true.) She's excited about the names of the authors: Achebe, Narayan, Gabriel Marquez, Emecheta, Roy, Wu. And of course she's throwing in some newer stuff for fun - there's a Miéville novel calling her name, and she really liked the dust jackets for Karen Healy's novels.

She sips her milkshake, her feet swinging above the rung of the stool, and watches Michael Sandero clean the kitchen until the gleaming steel counters have an extra shine. A little part of her wishes she'd brought a book, but she's kind of enjoying not-reading. The sunlight glides across the floor. The spoon shifts in the metal cup as the ice cream starts to melt. Tamika waits for her friend, and the afternoon is just as pretty as a brand new book, the kind you can't wait to open because it's going to be so good, but you do wait, holding it in your hand, because right now it's whole and beautiful and you don't want the good to be over. So you just hold it and feel the texture of the cover and the weight of the smooth, unripped, uncrumpled, unstained pages and you take a deep-breath of new book smell and you hold it as long as you can so the good just lasts and lasts. That's what sitting at the Moonlight All-Night (and All-Day) Diner waiting for a friend with a frosty mint chocolate chip milkshake just starting to melt around the edges and a high school kid who thinks you're cool singing into the handle of the mop he's using on the floor is like. It's a simile, not a metaphor, but Tamika's going to extend it just as long as she can.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tamika's friend arrives.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A million thanks to thingswithwings for letting me borrow Beatrice! If you haven't read [How I Survived My Summer Vacation, by Tamika Flynn, Age 12 3/4](http://archiveofourown.org/works/914801), you should do so immediately.

Tamika sees Beatrice first as a reflection, a light and dark blur reflected in the polished chrome of the milkshake machine that reflects the day outside in muted colors and half-recognizable shapes, like a dream or a Neil Gaiman novel. The door to the Moonlight All-Night Diner jingles as it opens, light glinting off the broad panel of glass. Tamika swings her feet happily underneath her stool. She spins around to smile at Beatrice, and Beatrice beams back, her smile so wide it makes her glasses shift a little on her face. Tamika can't help smiling back until her lips are stretched out so far they almost ache. That's okay - her heart aches a little bit too, like it can't hold so much happiness (and a little bit of sadness, a little bit of hurt, because the library will always be the beginning of their history, but the happiness outweighs any pain).

"Hey," Tamika says.

"Hey," Beatrice says back, and the word sounds special, even though it's just an ordinary word. The things they've been through and the things they've felt and the things they're still feeling and the things they're still going through are all packed together in that word. A shibboleth, Tamika thinks - a word that if you say it the right way will grant you access to everything, a word that can tell your whole life story and reveal all your allegiances. 

She has to admit the Summer Reading Program has really enhanced her vocabulary. And it brought her Beatrice, so basically, it's the best thing that's ever happened in her life. She hopes there are a lot of good things left to happen, though. And she hopes Beatrice is part of them. 

Tamika jumps off her stool and reaches for Beatrice's hand, and Beatrice reaches out too. Her hands are soft, her fingers a little pudgier than Tamika's, and paler. But her hands are perfect hands, and so are Tamika's. They're hands that can turn pages. They're hands that can squeeze yours in the dark and let you know that someone is there with you.

"I put my scooter next to your bike," Beatrice says, still smiling. With her free hand, she reaches into the pocket of her dress and pulls out a salt shaker. "I drew a circle around them. We'll see if it helps. I mean, it's only table salt. I don't know how effective that is against spontaneous transmogrification, but I read about it somewhere." She slips the salt shaker back into her pocket.

"I'm glad your parents let you come," Tamika tells her. 

"Me too," Beatrice says. 

They walk back to the counter, hand in hand. 

"Hey again, Tough Stuff," Michael Sandero says, tossing his cleaning rag into one of the sinks. "And Tough Stuff's friend."

"Beatrice is also tough," Tamika tells him. "She had as many stars on her chart as I did."

"That right, Too Tough?" he asks Beatrice. "I'm impressed. That's a pun, right. Too, two, you get it."

"I think I had a few less," Beatrice says. "And they were mostly non-fiction."

"Yeah, so's A Moveable Feast," Michael Sandero says. "And À La Recherche De Temps Perdu. And Assassination Vacation. Doesn't mean they're any less easy to get through, or any less useful. You're still up there in my book, Too Tough. I don't know if I would have made it out of there alive. I read pretty slow." He leans on the counter. "What can I get for you?"

"I would like a milkshake," Beatrice says, her words precise. "With one scoop of peach and one cinnamon, please. And extra whipped cream."

"Coming right up," Michael Sandero tells her, already lifting the lid that covers the ice cream.

Tamika takes little sips of her milkshake, trying to make it last, kind of like reading one Pablo Neruda poem at a time out of her collection at home. The shake machine whirs and a few moments later Michael slides a tall frosty glass across the counter to Beatrice, who sticks her straw into the whipped cream and scoops little dabs of it into her mouth. There's a bit of cream at the corner of her lips, and Beatrice licks it away. Tamika slurps up a little mouthful of her own shake, bitter chocolate and cool mint, and remembers how Beatrice kissed her, just leaned forward in the terrifying dark of the library and pressed her warm lips to Tamika's face. It was a comfort, then, like Tamika's favorite book from when she was little ( _Goodnight Moon_ ). It was something to hold onto, Beatrice's kiss. It meant she was with Tamika whatever happened, and Tamika was with her. It was perfect. It's still perfect. Tamika sighs into her milkshake and produces a single green bubble speckled with chocolate.

She'd like to kiss Beatrice again, someday. Not too long from now, but Tamika's only almost-thirteen (and she realizes she doesn't know when Beatrice's birthday is, but she's definitely going to get her the best present ever). Almost-thirteen seems too early for kissing. There will be time for all of that later, when they're a little bit older, when the darkness of the library is a little bit farther behind them, when they're ready to take on the equally terrifying world of dating together. Now that the summer is hazing into fall, the light as rich and stark as a story by Flannery O'Connor, Tamika is ready to get back to all of the routines of school. She wouldn't want to do any of it without Beatrice at her side, but for now, holding hands is enough. Besides, she's got reading to do.

"How's your milkshake?" she asks.

"Perfect," Beatrice says. "I figured this out last summer - peach and cinnamon together tastes like peach cobbler."

"I never would have thought of that," Tamika says admiringly. 

Beatrice blushes a little. "I'm sure you would. But, you know, you're _Doctor Zhivago_ and I'm _Guide To Trapping_. You're better at hidden meanings, all the symbolism. I'm better at seeing what's already there and how to put it together."

"It takes both," Tamika says. "Anyway, you're good at the other thing. You liked the end of _The Giver_ the first time."

"I know," Beatrice says and smiles. "And you put us together." She switches her straw to her left hand and reaches out. Tamika meets her halfway, lacing her fingers through Beatrice's. Their hands are warm and the milkshake is cold as it slips down Tamika's throat past her heart to her stomach, and it's all just perfect as they sit there on the mint-green stools inside the mint-green sanctuary of the Moonlight All-Night All-Day All-The-Time-Really Diner with the golden light pouring in the window and Michael Sandero humming the weather from last week's Welcome To Night Vale as the waitress taps her way across the floor to refill the scientists' coffee cups. 

"Classic," Tamika says at last, when the silence has grown too poignant and must be broken, the way she had to turn the page quickly when she was reading _Franny and Zooey_ and _Anna Karenina_. Beatrice laughs.

"Instant classic," she agrees, and squeezes Tamika's hand gently.


End file.
